BANGALORE: It's a small acquisition that has generated huge excitement because of the acquirer — Facebook. The social-networking giant has bought out Bangalore-based startup
Little Eye Labs for $15 million, the company's first acquisition in India.
The venture was founded in May 2012 by technology professionals Giridhar Murthy, who previously worked at Apple; Kumar Rangarajan, who has had stints at IBM and HP; Aditya Kulkarni, formerly with Google; Satyam Kandula and Lakshman Kakkirala, both formerly with IBM. The startup developed a tool that helps Android app developers to measure, analyze and optimize their apps.
"The biggest upside from this transaction is that many entrepreneurs will start building products out of India. Companies like Google, LinkedIn and other MNCs that traditionally didn't look at Indian product companies , would scout for opportunities in the domestic product space," said Rajesh Sawhney, founder of Global Super Angels Accelerator, which partially funded the venture.
Ravi Gururaj, co-founder of Harvard Business School Alumni Angels-India , echoed that sentiment: "This deal will open up engagements for other global biggies to set sights on Indian companies that will have a significant downstream effect."
Opening vistas
The Little Eye Labs tool helps Android app developers to analyze their apps It could help smartphone users who are troubled by battery draining out fast Buyout could mean that global companies will seek solutions in India
Team to move to FB HQ.
The entire Little Eye Labs team will move to Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California , to join its mobile division where they will be expected to leverage the company's infrastructure to improve the performance of their apps.
The deal is structured based on valuation and earnouts , under which the founders will have to collectively achieve certain milestones or stay the four-year tenure, said sources familiar with the transaction.
"This has been a fun and exciting journey. We're eager to be working alongside the incredible team at Facebook . Together, we'll continue on our mission of building awesome analysis tools to aid in the development of brilliant apps," said Kumar Rangarajan, CEO of Little Eye Labs.
The Little Eye tool helps visualize the behaviour of the app and estimates its power, memory and network data consumption trends. Smartphone users tend to be intolerant towards mobile apps that drain battery, crash and perform poorly.
The startup was incubated at GSF Accelerator, which invested $30,000 in it. It raised a follow-on seed round from GSF and VentureEast Tenet fund estimated between $1,00,000 and $3,00,000.
Subbu Subramanian, engineering manager in Facebook, said: "We remain focused on producing useful and engaging mobile apps. The Little Eye Labs technology will help us to continue improving our Android codebase to make more efficient, higher-performing apps."
0 comments:
Post a Comment